By Mike Boyer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A coalition of environmental groups is taking to the airwaves starting Thursday to prod Cinergy Corp. into completing a 21/2 -year-old federal pollution settlement.

The 30-second ads on talk radio stations WLW and WKRC call on the utility to complete the $1.5 billion settlement announced in late 2000 to reduce emissions from its coal-fired generating plants.

The tentative agreement was heralded at the time as a landmark. It would require Cinergy to shut down or repower nine coal-fired boilers, including three at its Beckjord plant in Clermont County.

Some of the terms of the settlement were slated to be implemented by Cinergy by next year.

"It looks to me like it will be harder and harder for Cinergy to keep its commitments,'' said Eric Schaeffer, former chief of civil enforcement for the Environmental Protection Agency and now director of the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project.

That group, the Hoosier and Ohio Environmental Councils and the Sierra Club are sponsoring the week of radio spots.

The radio advertising cites the health risks associated with pollution and asks: "What are they waiting for? More deaths? More pollution? It's time for Cinergy to clean up its act. Your life may depend upon it.''

Kurt Walzer of the Ohio Environmental Council, said: "This was one of the biggest and one of the first of the tentative settlements. It should have been settled by now.''

Cinergy is still negotiating details of the tentative 2000 agreement with federal regulators, company spokeswoman Angeline Protogere said Tuesday.

Even though the deal is not final, Cinergy has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on pollution controls to reduce nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants in Ohio and Indiana, she said.

About half of the tentative agreement included cuts in nitrogen oxide emissions, which Cinergy already was implementing when the settlement was announced.

Schaeffer, who resigned from the EPA last year citing the Bush administration's failure to enforce pollution laws, said, "There's no way an agreement like this would take three years to complete.''

Virginia-based Dominion Resources, one of nine utilities sued along with Cinergy, reached a tentative settlement with the EPA in November 2000 and completed a final $1.2 billion agreement in April.

When the Cinergy settlement was announced, chairman James Rogers said it "allows us to gain certainty regarding any future operations and reduce emissions over a time frame that will not compromise the reliability and affordability of electricity.''

The settlement came in the waning days of the Clinton administration.

Shortly after the Bush administration took office, it began re-examining enforcement of the so-called New Source Review provision of the Clean Air Act, under which the lawsuits were filed.

After an extended review, the Bush administration decided to complete settlements already reached and announced controversial changes in the provision. Environmentalists say the changes weaken enforcement.

E-mail mboyer@enquirer.com